Posted
by
Soulskill
on Friday March 30, 2012 @05:31PM
from the rumble-in-the-terminal dept.

Fluffeh writes "A nice summary at TechDirt brings word that Bruce Schneier has been debating Kip Hawley, former boss of the TSA, over at the Economist. Bruce has been providing facts, analysis and some amazing statistics throughout the debate, and it makes for very educational reading. Because of the format, the former TSA administrator is compelled to respond. Quoting: 'He wants us to trust that a 400-ml bottle of liquid is dangerous, but transferring it to four 100-ml bottles magically makes it safe. He wants us to trust that the butter knives given to first-class passengers are nevertheless too dangerous to be taken through a security checkpoint. He wants us to trust that there's a reason to confiscate a cupcake (Las Vegas), a 3-inch plastic toy gun (London Gatwick), a purse with an embroidered gun on it (Norfolk, VA), a T-shirt with a picture of a gun on it (London Heathrow) and a plastic lightsaber that's really a flashlight with a long cone on top (Dallas/Fort Worth).""

Actually, by itself it's a powder mix. It's convenient to add a liquid binder to make a paste for easy application but it can also be pressed with any of several other binders into any number of solid forms. Plaques, for instance, to be awarded at a conference. Carry on 20 kg of award plaques and Security might ask to see them but they won't blink at you carrying them on. The rest is obvious to any sophomore engineering student.

And TSA knows about these [1], but since there's no practical way to screen for them they just hope that the Bad Guys are too stupid to bother with a sure-fire way to remove planes from the sky.

[1] And many, many others. Ask a sophomore engineering class to come up with methods and you can have hundreds. Fortunately, Bad Guys are never geeks.

Osama Bin Laden had a degree in Civil Engineering[1]. Al-Zawahiri is a surgeon[2]. The guy who tried to drive into Glasgow airport in a flaming Range Rover was a medical doctor. There are plenty of chemists and engineers who pop up all the time from inside the various Islamist terrorist groups.

Jeff Dunham: [Walter is complaining about suicide bombers] You know, Walter, those guys actually believe that if they martyred themselves like that, there'll be 72 virgins waiting for 'em in paradise.
Walter: Well, April Fool, dumb-ass! If there are virgins waiting for you, there'll be 72 guys just like you! "Oh, no, this is not what Osama said it would be!" Seventy-two virgins? Why not 72 slutty broads who know what the hell they're doing?

You joke, but this is literally the case. I can't find the link, but a lot of terrorists basically don't have a life, and getting them one actually breaks up the group. This was tried on (IIRC) the Black September group.

Please do try to find the link. As far as I know, Black September stopped its operation partly because many of its members (including their founder and chief) were assassinated by Mosad, and the rest because the PLO stopped caring about having a clean image, and thus stopped disassociating itself from terror, making the group unnecessary any more.

My host, who was one of Abu Iyad's most trusted deputies, was charged with devising a solution. For months both men thought of various ways to solve the Black September problem, discussing and debating what they could possibly do, short of killing all these young men, to stop them from committing further acts of terror.

Finally they hit upon an idea. Why not simply marry them off? In other words, why not find a way to give these men -- the most dedicated, competent, and implacable fighters in the entire PLO - a reason to live rather than to die? Having failed to come up with any viable alternatives, the two men put their plan in motion....

So approximately a hundred of these beautiful young women were brought to Beirut. There, in a sort of PLO version of a college mixer, boy met girl, boy fell in love with girl, boy would, it was hoped, marry girl. There was an additional incentive, designed to facilitate not just amorous connections but long-lasting relationships. The hundred or so Black Septemberists were told that if they married these women, they would be paid $3,000; given an apartment in Beirut with a gas stove, a refrigerator, and a television; and employed by the PLO in some nonviolent capacity. Any of these couples that had a baby within a year would be rewarded with an additional $5,000.

Both Abu Iyad and the future general worried that their scheme would never work. But, as the general recounted, without exception the Black Septemberists fell in love, got married, settled down, and in most cases started a family...the general explained, not one of them would agree to travel abroad, for fear of being arrested and losing all that they had -- that is, being deprived of their wives and children. 'And so', my host told me, 'that is how we shut down Black September and eliminated terrorism. It is the only successful case that I know of.'

That was the view from the inside, dunno how it squares with your knowledge. But that's the source I had, for what it's worth.

And Mohammed Atta, the leader of the World Trade Center attack team, had a degree in architecture. I've seen this factoid used to explain that the attack wasn't actually an act of terrorism; it was an act of artistic criticism. Atta was destroying what he and many others considered the ugliest blot on the New York City skyline.

"The Terrorists" aren't even trying. There are so many things I can think of to wreak havoc on an airplane flight, I can't even begin to count them. And why the obsession with airplanes, when travel is the least of the things that could be disrupted?

The only answer is that these people lack will, intelligence, or both. Because if they really wanted to, they could turn the USA upside down a different way every day of the year. Such is the leverage that any average citizen has over the forces of Nature these days.

We should be grateful, since very few of us in the so-called Land of the Free are really prepared to do what it takes to remain free as an everyday civil effort. You can see that by the simple fact that the TSA is little less than a Terrorists Surrogate Army - doing more to affect our freedoms than all the hijackers al-qaeda could manage to recruit.

If I were a terrorist, I'd set a bomb off in security (one of the large, dense open ones, like Denver). Then, one week later, set off a bomb at crowded check-in lines. Then 6 days later, check a bag through and set that off on a 15 minute timer ( no casualties, but will shut down most airports as they can't move baggage without the machinery that would be damaged by it). Then, 4 days after that, set off a car bomb in 5 airports at once in the drop-off or pick-up areas.

That should just about shut down all large airports in the US, and those that jump when they think the US might ask them at some point in the future to jump (UK/OZ, I'm looking at you). Modify the plan as reactions happen (i.e. delay the schedule if all airports are shut down). That would bankrupt all US airlines other than Southwest and Alaska, unless the government moves itself closer to bankruptcy with bailouts.

The US is pretty delicate, more delicate than Americans would acknowledge, and so it would work because they wouldn't see the results from it coming.

Flying intrastate out of Stevens will generally be done out of Terminal A, and there are reduced security in that terminal. It wasn't for years after 9/11 until TSA was used for the flights in (having TSA agents living in small towns working on or maybe 2 flights per day is silly, but that's what they do now. Taking a set of knives isn't a problem going out to Dillingham or Iliamna on a Saab prop plane that can't reach anything outside Alaska (well, not anything American, anyway).

Yep. If they had reason to believe someone had released mercury in a cargo hold, the outcome would be like the old practical joke where someone releases two pigs in their high school building late at night, with "#1" spray-painted on one of them and "#3" on the other.

They will never find pig #2, but they will take the whole school apart with a screwdriver looking for it.

For congress, and they were, as usual, too spineless to tell the TSA to take a hike. After all, it's congress who spent all that money to line Chertoff's pockets (guess who makes the useless scanners now), and they didn't want to look bad for it - hearings are just photo-ops for the next election, to give the appearance of "doing something" when of course, the only thing going on is bribes and blackmail. Ever notice how DHS gets every excessive dime they ask for? Well, I know if I had warrantess wiretaps and all that kind of thing, the first thing I'd do is get the dirt on congress for future blackmail. This would occur to any bureaucrat in a few seconds. So you have to assume that's why these agencies never get seriously questioned about their ridiculous antics and waste, eh?

I like to think of it this way. America likes to think of itself like it's Charlie Brown*. In reality it's Peppermint Patty**.

*As much as Charlie Brown is treated as a punching bag and is self-deprecating, it appears the world is set against him. He is the underdog who is too worried at times about going too far and hence is wishy-washy, but in a crisis he'll rise up as the natural leader and do the right thing.

**Peppermint Patty is obnoxious, self-centered, and quick to lay blame upon others. Yea, everyone is in love with you, even when they don't even know you exist or love someone else. Golly, you're bossing people around all the time towards your own ends, but why does it seem like some people think you finally deciding to hold yourself back a bit is too little, too late? Oh, sure, you can be the leader, but if things get tough, you want to push the actual responsibility, concerns, etc on someone else. Or you can just ignore that there's any sort of connection between your orders and the implication that they'd actually deal with a problem by actually effecting it in a positive way.

PS - Yea, yea, I've watched too many Peanut specials. I still like them though. I just don't like the idea of living them.

I guess somebody took a play out of Hoover's book. It took the disgracing of Nixon to break that cycle of power grab and blackmail the last time around. If only people actually could get a clue from history...

No congresscritter or international equivalent wants to be Michael Dukakis and have her or his arse handed to them in the next election when a single Willie Horton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Horton) makes it onto a plane and does something Bad.

It's politically far safer to support any level of nonsense security theater and be able to say "I supported every effort to prevent this tragedy" after the inevitable next Bad Thing than stand up and actively support even the sanest reductions in security theater because the inevitable next Bad Thing will still happen and your political enemies will have no problem turning it into your fault.

For the non-Americans, Michael Dukakis was a governor of Massachusetts who stuck his neck out and supported a fairly common-sense program for giving prisoners coming up to the end of their sentence short periods of furlough as part of efforts to support reintegration into society. Willie Horton was a prisoner who absconded while on furlough and later raped someone. When Dukakis ran for President in 1988, Republicans ran attack ads against Dukakis featuring Horton and his crimes as a consequence of Dukakis' 'soft on crime' approach.

Our debate has now ended and those supporting the motion—that changes made to airport security since 9/11 have done more harm than good—have won handsomely....Voters have roundly declared that the frustrations, the delays, the loss of liberty and the increase in fear that characterize their interactions with airport-security procedures vastly outweigh the good these procedures achieve. For some, indeed, the benefits are essentially non-existent: any sensible terrorist can find a work-around or choose a different point of attack, as Bruce Schneier explains. And so the widely expressed hope is that changes made to security in the (near) future will make the whole regime less reactive, more rational, more flexible and more intelligence-driven. The results of this debate suggest that these changes should be made with some urgency: passengers are angry.

They're in the business of making passengers feel safe. Passengers like that. They'll gladly suffer through free prostate exams if it means they can sit comfortably on the flight, believing they won't be one of the next set of 9/11 martyrs.

And it's a popular product: Look at how many people fly. If people didn't like the product, they wouldn't buy it. So whenever someone says "Ah! They're taking away their civil liberties!"... Well, yes, but that's no worse than you forcing your own beliefs on them that they shouldn't be able to buy free prostate exams.

At the end of the day, you can only be responsible for your own behavior: These people aren't being forced to board a plane at gunpoint. They wllingly accept what the TSA is doing, regardless of whether or not it is necessary.

If you want the situation to change: Don't fly. Let the airplanes rust in their hangars. Let the corporations go bankrupt one by one. The TSA is only allowed to live by the patronage of the passengers. No passengers = No TSA.

Would you rather drive for 48 hours or be raped? I prefer to only have my knob polished by attractive females, and I prefer not to have my anus or ass crack or even my scalp explored by curious, impatient, eager fingers. I honestly don't understand people who are willing to be sexually violated in order to avoid losing a few hundred dollars or being seriously inconvenienced.

It brings to mind that joke about Winston Churchill and a socialite:

"Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?""My goodness, Mr. Churchill... Well, I suppose I would.""Would you sleep with me for five pounds?""Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!""Madam, we've already established that. Now we are just haggling about the price."

I prefer not to have my anus or ass crack or even my scalp explored by curious, impatient, eager fingers. I honestly don't understand people who are willing to be sexually violated in order to avoid losing a few hundred dollars or being seriously inconvenienced.

You apparently misunderstand the situation...

You have paid for that "agent" to fondle you. Enjoy it. And try to moan loudly, it makes them feel like they've done a good job.

Guard A violates you in every manner they see fit. Pick an orifice. They look at you as subhuman. They enjoy this practice.

Guard B treats you with respect is only minimally invasive. They explain what they're doing. They want to see you get out of this place as soon as possible and hope you'll re-enter society without a hitch.

They *are* two different things. Suck is suck, but there are varying degrees.

If it an excessive use of power? Yes. Is it a violation of my personal space? Yes.Is the agent groping me with one hand with his other on his erect penis? No. Are they penetrating me for their own sexual gratification? No. Are they enjoying it in a sexual nature? No.

When you call it what it isn't it and exaggerate the nature of what's happening you're causing yourself to lose credibility. If you want to have a reasonable discussion then you've got to bring reason to the table otherwise you're going to be dismissed before you even get to the door.

And like I mentioned before - we probably agree on the overarching problem with what's going on - but there's absolutely no need to associate it with rape when it should be enough to associate it with a significant violation of our essential liberties.

Is the agent groping me with one hand with his other on his erect penis? No. Are they penetrating me for their own sexual gratification? No. Are they enjoying it in a sexual nature? No.

I think you might need to do a little more research there, yourself. A rapist often does not rape someone for his own sexual gratification. There are lots of men walking around out there who are sexually frustrated (I'm looking at you,/.) but they don't rape people. Rape is about power and control, and in some cases pure sadism. It's seldom really about sex.

We no longer visit the United States. Instead, we go to other parts of Canada or to Mexico or to Europe where, each year, we drop 2-3 K dollars for holidays. Grabbing my nutsack and/or pushing me into a microwave oven isn't exactly what I would call laying out the welcome mat. That's why we don't go to the US anymore. Oh well, lots of other places to see in the world.

They'll gladly suffer through free prostate exams if it means they can sit comfortably on the flight, believing they won't be one of the next set of 9/11 martyrs.

No, we suffer through it because we want to be able to visit our families and not spend most of what little vacation time we have travelling.

Obviously if my dislike of TSA policies doesn't overcome my love of my family, there must not be a real issue to begin with. That's logic.

Well, yes, but that's no worse than you forcing your own beliefs on them that they shouldn't be able to buy free prostate exams.

You mean my belief that we could have airline flights -- the thing everyone actually wants -- without the prostate exams?

Oh, and on the subject of prostate exams: they aren't that far yet. But after making you take off your shoes after the Shoe Bomber, and making you get your crotch photographed after the Underpants Bomber... You just wait until the Butthole Bomber shows up. Then it'll be put-up or shut-up time.

Obviously if my dislike of TSA policies doesn't overcome my love of my family, there must not be a real issue to begin with. That's logic.

Actually, yes. I agree with you completely in spirit, but as long as enough of us keep putting up with it by flying rather than either driving or skipping the trip, we have passively given our personal (and financial) standing ovation to the current security theatre system.

You want to make a difference? Make the process take as long as possible (if you really must fly). Insist on a pat-down over the pornoscanner. Deliberately set the metal detectors off with harmless-but-embarassing (for the agents) personal items... Like nipple rings. Make sure that you can take a later flight and it won't make much difference - And let the government molesters know as much. Bring a variety of items with you (of no real personal value and that technically pass TSA rules) that will confuse the hell out of them as to whether or not you can take them through security (hint - TSA agents know nothing about electronics - Try taking an old video card in your carry-on and watch them twitch).

The problem there, it annoys all the sheep who just want to get hurry up and get groped so they can visit Grandma. If enough people actually cared enough to act, instead of bitch, just 10% of us holding up the screening process could bring commercial aviation in the US to a screeching halt. Instead, the very, very few of us who do care simply get pulled to the side to enjoy the accusatory glares of our fellow travelers.

i did this once by accident; i had a playstation 2, some miscellaneous electronics and a gallon bottle of liquid soap bundled together in my soft-sided carry-on. it was very old, so the zipper was sticky.

when i picked up my suitcase, i found that it had been razored open, with clothes drooping out of the sides which had been loosely taped back together with official TSA tape.

They're in the business of making passengers feel safe. Passengers like that.

Did you RTFA? 87% of the readers agreed to the motion, which was "This house believes that changes made to airport security since 9/11 have done more harm than good". That's not geeks, that's you average Americans.

Perhaps I hold a less than optimistic view of the American public, but I doubt readers of the Economist are "average Americans." The Economist is left leaning by U.S. standards and has much higher intellectual standards that most media consumed by the "average American."

Perhaps I hold a less than optimistic view of the American public, but I doubt readers of the Economist are "average Americans." The Economist is left leaning by U.S. standards and has much higher intellectual standards that most media consumed by the "average American."

That is a sad commentary on how far right America has slid in the last 20 years.

The Economist is regarded as fairly right leaning in Canada, having blasted the previous Liberal prime minister and endorsing the current Conservative one (Harper) for years.

It was big news here when the same publication slammed Harper for shutting down Parliament in 2010 rather than than let an opposition coalition take power.

This may be true; I haven't read it regularly in a couple of years. But I do think it's true that extremists in either US party would find much of what appears in The Economist very uncomfortable. It's probably the most fair and balanced news source around these days and most USians aren't accustomed with that.

It's a popular product because there's few reasonable alternatives for anything other than the shortest trips. I live in Los Angeles; my family lives in Australia. It's a bloody long swim. If air travel to Australia involved a two hour exam and a strip search I'd still grit my teeth and do it every couple of years because the alternative would be to never see my family again.

More pragmatically for most Americans, like many many people I travel between California and various east coast cities on a regular

Using just the signature, it would be more correct to say: Nothing Exploded, then, it was the beginning. The explosion marked the beginning. Before that, as far as anyone can tell, there was nothing at all - though of course nothing is much harder to define when all the laws of physics we use to try to explain things were batshit crazy at that relative time - and at that point, even time didn't exist.

It's clearly ineffective, but never mind that: we don't have the money for it. In case we haven't noticed, we're spending 1 point some odd TRILLION more every year than we take in.

Unfortunately, like most large bureaucracies, the TSA is self sustaining. It work hard to justify itself, despite never having caught a single terrorist in its entire existence. Replicate that to hundreds of other useless federal agencies, and you have a government that far overstepped the bounds of what it's supposed to be for, and now exists to give jobs to the phone sanitizers (RIP, DA) of our country.

Yet Americans will cheerfully keep voting for Republicrats, no matter what they do, so I guess the TSA is what we deserve. You get the government you deserve, they always say.

I cannot speak for others, but I have stopped flying. Period. Instead we drive where the distance is reasonable
and simply don't go many places we once went. So the argument that 'people are flying anyway, the security theater must be ok' is
weak as the number flying might be much higher. Not that airports have the capacity for more
air travel anyway...

I cannot speak for others, but I have stopped flying. Period. Instead we drive where the distance is reasonableand simply don't go many places we once went. So the argument that 'people are flying anyway, the security theater must be ok' isweak as the number flying might be much higher. Not that airports have the capacity for moreair travel anyway...

Actually, one of schneier's points is that this effect has caused some 500 deaths in road accidents per year. I have not read the book he cites as a source for this number...

Researchers have estimated that the 9/11 attacks generated nearly 2,200 additional road traffic deaths in the United States through mid-2003 from a relative increase in driving and reduction in flying resulting from fear of additional terrorist attacks and associated reductions in the convenience of flying.

So have I, including being willing to spend about 5 days and a not-insignificant amount of money to travel from Ohio to California by rail. Which I consider to be a small price to pay for not having my rights trampled.

Especially because rail travel is rather fun if you do it right. Sleeper cars are basically moving hotel rooms, meals are included, and you can hide in your room or try chatting in the lounge depending on your willingness to get to know complete strangers. I've met some interesting people on trains, including a nun in a spiritual crisis, a guy who was a well-known campaign adviser in Texas, some ardent Tea Partiers, Boy Scouts heading back from hiking trips, etc. And you also get a real sense of how big the United States really is, and all the variety of landscapes in it - I was thinking of Woodie Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land" along much of the ride.

Of course, the TSA now is trying to get into the business of searching rail passengers and creating highway checkpoints so that those of us who don't want to be searched without probable cause can't avoid it. I don't mind seeing bomb-sniffing dogs in major rail stations, because that makes some sense. But what doesn't make sense is trying to take away any object that could be lethal - as George Carlin pointed out, you probably could beat a guy to death with the Sunday New York Times.

I don't mind seeing bomb-sniffing dogs in major rail stations, because that makes some sense.

It makes sense only in that someone might try to bomb all those people concentrated together in the rail station, but no more sense than in any other place where there are a bunch of people standing around. Preventing bomb attacks on trains (or buses, or any other form of ground transport) by inspecting passengers makes no sense whatsoever. Things that travel on the ground don't need to be attacked from within by passengers. Someone who wants to bomb a train doesn't need to sneak a bomb onto it, they just need to walk up to the tracks when the train is coming and drop the bomb on the tracks. Or they can skip the bomb and derail the train by attacking the tracks with hand tools, etc. If they want to hijack a train to hold everyone hostage, they can force it to stop and board it. Same things apply to buses. Anyone can drive up in front of a bus and drop a bomb from a car, or run the bus off the road with a larger vehicle, or point a gun at the driver and force them to pull over, then board it, etc. Screening passengers makes zero sense in those situations.

For planes, at least it makes some sense. Planes are fast. It's not exactly trivial to catch up to them in mid-air to board or attack them. The pilots can't just pull over and stop anywhere, either. To hijack a plane without being on it when it takes off, you have to have a pretty impressive plane yourself. Hijacking a plane in mid-air from the outside doesn't make any sense anyway since, if you had the resources to do it in the first place, the only thing you'd need would be the passengers and, unless there were specific passengers you were after, you could just start your own airline, load up your own plane, then kidnap those people in mid-air. So, for planes, at least there's some security excuse for screening passengers like that. For ground transportation, it's just stupid.

So have I, including being willing to spend about 5 days and a not-insignificant amount of money to travel from Ohio to California by rail. Which I consider to be a small price to pay for not having my rights trampled.

It seems like a common theme lately. "If you don't like foo don't participate" Well NOT flying isn't the way to stop the TSA. There are too many people flying. What is worse, is TSA's mandate actually covers more than airlines, they also include Rails. What will you do when they start doing the same thing at the rail station? The time to fight is now.

We've taken this route as well. It's not worth the hassle (much less being treated like a criminal) and we've discovered that a lot of the country is really pretty to drive through. I do hope that someday this all gets fixed, but my vote's always been an outlier and I don't expect that to change. I'll charter a flight or drive, and since I can't afford a chartered flight I'm paying for gas and auto maintenance instead of airline tickets.

If it means I get an empty middle seat between me and that fat lady with the perfume, I sincerely thank you.

It is my fond hope that your decision not to fly is taken up by a wide majority of Americans.

Be careful what you wish for...empty seats are only temporary... If demand decreases, airlines will cut back on scheduled flights (or plane size (or both)) to eliminate as many empty seats as possible.

Unlike a hotel that has a reason to keep occupancy below 100%, an airline is happiest when occupancy is at 100% (and the only way to get there is to sell 105% (or more) of the seats)

I'm glad someone else is willing to admit that the "law of supply and demand" is a canard in a corporatized society.

All this stuff we hear about drilling for oil and pipelines will bring down the price of gasoline because of "the law of supply and demand" makes me crazy. I have to constantly explain why with the global marketplace and with a speculative futures market, we are disconnected from any "supply and demand" effect.

TSA agents are probably on a level with mall cops. Or lower. Some analyst probably evaluated the possibility of taking over an airliner with a fake gun. One way to slip a fake gun onto an airplane would be to make a cardboard replica that could be folded flat. With a couple of photos of a real gun affixed to the sides, and a terrorist waving it and screaming and the flight crew could be fooled. So a regulation was created to prohibit photos of guns. Now, if you explained that to a logical person, they could easily distinguish between a t-shirt print and a full sized side view of a semi-auto. TSA agents aren't hired for their judgment, but for their ability to follow rules. Simple rules. So the rule 'no pictures of guns' will be interpreted literally. And this will cover everything, including an image of Elmer Fudd with his double barreled shotgun.

You make a decent attempt at a sensible explanation. Unfortunately, you're wrong.

I know something about this incident. It was quite simple. The security guard was pissed off - he had been in an argument with his boss earlier - and was looking to take it out on someone. He picked a teenager with a T shirt which had a picture of 'Optimus Prime' on it, and told him to take it off, simply because it looked flashy to him. There was not even any concern about the fact that all 'Transformer' robots hold a gun initially. The issue about the gun was raised later because the family made a fuss, and they were looking for a retrospective excuse. Of course, at that stage, all the guards stuck together and ordered the family off...

The point here is that, in the West, we have appointed people to 'look after us' and 'tell us what to do' in every conceivable activity in life. And a large portion of the people who apply for these jobs are assertive bullies. You can see it everywhere - people telling us what to eat, how much we should exercise, what kind of sex is legal... And when they run out of sensible things to tell us, they just start to make it up...

The point here is that, in the West, we have appointed people to 'look after us' and 'tell us what to do' in every conceivable activity in life.

Yet somehow, I manage to make it through every day with nobody but my wife telling me what to do.

If you think we're over-policed and over-regulated that's fine, but the notion that we've got someone "telling us what to do" in "every conceivable activity in life" is the kind of ridiculous hyperbole that would qualify you for a job as a right-wing AM radio host.

Can you say, "This government has taken away all our freedoms!" for me? And also, "They took our jobs!"?

Yet somehow, I manage to make it through every day with nobody but my wife telling me what to do.

is the kind of ridiculous hyperbole...

The truth is, of course, somewhere in the middle. Everytime you stop your car at a stop sign, you are doing so because someone else told you to stop there, and that stop signs mean "stop". If you don't drive, you cross at marked crosswalks (are told to do so, even if you don't) and with the light (ditto).

You go through the checkout at the grocery store because someone told you you had to or else you'd be arrested for shoplifting (or simply can't get anything from t

You go through the checkout at the grocery store because someone told you you had to or else you'd be arrested for shoplifting (or simply can't get anything from the store). You clicked the "submit" button to post your comment because the person who programmed the webpage told you that you had to click the submit button to submit your comment.

Some things you're expected to do because that's what makes that system work. Some things you're expected to do by argument from authority; edict.

A while back I was shopping in Trader Joe's and overhead a woman who was looking at the choices for hot dogs (of all things) exclaim 'So many choices, I wish that someone would tell me what to buy'. I can only make the assumption that she applies the very same logic to all the decisions that she has to make. It's a sad, sad world (or at least country) that we live in.

The point here is that, in the West, we have appointed people to 'look after us' and 'tell us what to do' in every conceivable activity in life. And a large portion of the people who apply for these jobs are assertive bullies. You can see it everywhere - people telling us what to eat, how much we should exercise, what kind of sex is legal... And when they run out of sensible things to tell us, they just start to make it up...

Oh yeah, those people in the "east" are all easy going, right? Might want to check out some of the laws in Korea, Japan, China, India, Cambodia, Malaysia, etc... Of course the "middle-east" is even more easy going, right?

This is part of the human condition and why it's important to have democracies where you can get voted out of office (rather than have a civil war say like Syria). Of course many aren't doing their voting part in the "western" democracy very well (otherwize something as unpopular as the

He wasn't talking about laws. He was talking about the bully mentality of American LEOs and pseudo-LEOs. Having lived in several of the countries you listed I can tell you first hand that the cops and security personnel in those countries are much less likely to have been schoolyard bullies as children. I couldn't believe it at first, but LEOs outside the US are far more likely to be relatively normal people without any chips on their shoulders and without any violent cravings to bash your head in with their night sticks and torture you with their tasers and pepper spray while laughing joyously about it with their buddies. It has something to do with US culture. It encourages certain kinds of people to admire violence and seek jobs where they have opportunities to beat up people who cannot legally defend themselves against them and who are usually grossly outnumbered in any case.

As far as the US being a democracy, we actually aren't one. If we were a true democracy we would be able to abolish the DHS and TSA via direct popular vote. All we get to do is vote for people who then vote for which dictator we get to have. It's really a silly system. I think this is a perfect example of why a (constitutionally limited) true democracy would be preferable. Here's a situation where the majority is against a new kind of tyranny and yet there is nothing that we can do to stop it.

I live in switzerland, and for the last three years I've traveled to america every year for a conference. This year I decided to go to a european conference instead, for the sole reason of TSA, Security Theater and having to essentially waive all my rights(!) just to be allowed to enter the country.

While I'm only one person, flying only once per year to america, I wonder how many others did the same.

While I'm only one person, flying only once per year to america, I wonder how many others did the same.

Add me to the list. I used to rack up about 50,000 frequent flyer miles a year for conferences and business in general. In the last six years I've flown a total of twice, and if I have to do it again I'll drive or (maybe) take a train. SF is only a long day's drive from Phoenix anyway and I have family at about halfway.

I live in switzerland, and for the last three years I've traveled to america every year for a conference. This year I decided to go to a european conference instead, for the sole reason of TSA, Security Theater and having to essentially waive all my rights(!) just to be allowed to enter the country.

While I'm only one person, flying only once per year to america, I wonder how many others did the same.

Its been a few years but from what I've seen hoops to get a US visa in the first place seemed to cause more people to abandon their plans than security measures.

This was before body scanning and groping were placed on the TSA menu so I imagine things are worse now.

I hope nobody wants to go the US anymore cause its what we deserve for treating our guests like shit.

The TSA guy said that by preventing terrorists from using complicated liquid explosives, they have to move to more exotic explosives. Ignoring the very porous security perimeter of an airport (many tons of airline parts and supplies are trucked in every day, there's no way to inspect everything), what's going to keep a dedicated terrorist from using old fashioned C4 explosive hidden in an obvious body cavity. I've seen enough internet porn to know that with proper training and motivation, a quite sizeable chunk of explosives could be hidden within the body. With surgical help and no desire to stay alive for more than 12 hours, I suspect that even larger portions of explosives could be hidden within the body.

The TSA guy said that by preventing terrorists from using complicated liquid explosives,

Instead the "terrorists" dump their explosives in the garbage can next to the security line.
You either treat that bottle of water as a bomb, and dispose of it properly. Or you let me take it on the plane.

Why would a terrorist bent on making bloody mayhem even bother with forging an ID? He could just wander into the crowd of people waiting for the security theater ritual. There's a far higher density of people there than you get on a plane, and it would certainly get just as much press as bringing a plane down.

Of course, there's another thing that Bruce is too polite to mention about the security theater is that its actual purpose is to compel the public to make a conspicuous show of obedience to arbitrary, useless, and idiotic authority figures. They might as well just demand a stiff-arm salute and a heel click in the direction of a photo of the Godlike Leader Whom We All Love Or Else.

To be fair, Kipster never stood a chance in a fact-based argument and probably knows it well. What Schneier says is true - TSA, and the whole security theater is just a CYA operation with some budged to dispose of to friends, and is defended mostly by interested parties to an emotionally involved audience.

But the theater is also there because most of the US public think they can afford it and that it is very visible and looks impressive. In a way, this is similar to the US carrying 25,000 nuclear warheads at the peak of the Cold war, although 3000 were more than enough for adequate retaliation threat. I guess you can call it demonstration of prowess, and it seems it is at least as important as effectiveness to many.

I have no problems with the government (the TSA) in this case running airport security.What is needed is to undo all the post 9/11 "Security Theater" (liquid ban, body scanners, pat-downs, nail clipper bans, toy guns being confiscated etc) and go back to a sane level of security.